


Old Stories, New Faces

by notquiteaphoenix



Series: Brave New World [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Blind Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison, Canon-Typical Violence, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Dimension Travel, F/F, Gen, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, M/M, Pre-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-01-04 23:18:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12178461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notquiteaphoenix/pseuds/notquiteaphoenix
Summary: Raiding Hydra bases is all fun and games until a discovery hits too close to home.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Canon-Typical Violence is referring to CA:WS level to be safe, but I don't think I veer into the violence being graphic enough for me to use the Archive Warning. Please tell me if you think otherwise.

Sub-Level Five is a white, minimalist expanse of a room; the soulless epitome of how humanity visualized the future in the early 2000s, before the reality of climate change and mismanagement of natural resources hits even so-called first world countries hard.

This is a showroom meant to show off functional prototypes to bigwigs and investors, flashy with little actual substance.

The next floor is a row of labs, not extravagantly designed but exactly what Gabriel is looking for.

“Jackpot,” Gabriel says, peering through the nearest lab’s window.

Rows of cannibalized parts—Stark Tech, Hammer Tech, even shit derived from what was left of the Invasion of New York—lay dissected or in partly assembled, Frankenstein mishmash weapons in an attempt for more power.

Gabriel would feel some regret that they are going to blow all this up, if all of this potential alien-fighting weapons weren’t in the hands of Nazis who wanted to use this on people. Once, Gabriel could have called up Efi and Mei to get on this shit and forwarded the progress reports to Torby until the old Swede gave up on retirement again. With them, Gabriel could face an alien army with no fear.

But the people Gabriel would trust Earth with are long since laid to rest in a distant dimension.

“You all excited about this junk, viejo?” Sombra appears at his side with a holoscreen in hand. She scrolls through the inventory and dismisses it with a quick flick of her clawed fingers. “Give me a few minutes with the computers and I’ll see if there are any true gems.”

And there’s his objective, taking the information from Hydra and keeping the weapons specs to distribute to...less compromised parties. If Gabriel can’t have the best, he can at least have anyone other than Nazis playing around the new tech. He signs _go ahead_ to Sombra and she practically skips to the first lab, the door sliding open for her.   

Gabriel walks down the hallway at a relaxed pace and opens his comm line. “Soldier, Widowmaker, we found what we need on Sub-Floor Six.”

“Affirmative,” Jack says. “Will be delayed. Cleanup on Sub-Floor Three.”

“Need help?”

“No. Just being thorough.”

Gabriel snorts and activates a damage-alert app in his mask’s HMD to keep a virtual eye on Jack; the four of them are good—Gabriel privately names them nuBlackwatch though surely Jack suspects with the outfits Gabriel designed—better than anything this world has to offer yet Gabriel isn’t about to let his guard down.  “Widowmaker?”

Amélie responds quickly. “Sub-Floor Four clear and charges set. On route.”

“See, Soldier, _that_ is what I like to hear.”

There is a long pause and Gabriel knows there is a fifty-fifty chance of him getting a dirty joke as a response. He’s disappointed when Jack just says, “Working on it. Soldier 76, out.”

Gabriel shakes his head and plans on teasing out whatever Jack is holding back after the mission. He walks down the hall, checking for life signs as the lab doors open. Much like Talon and its disturbing corporate efficiency, this Hydra facility has evacuation procedures that Sombra took advantage of, herding the Hydra agents to where Amélie laid in wait while Gabriel and Jack cleared out the first two basement levels.

The first two bases they hit had mixed company and only Gabriel’s careful planning allows them to sift through Hydra and actual SHIELD agents without unintentional casualties so far. Between Sombra’s creative door locking and Amélie using Ana’s sleep darts, Gabriel rarely had to direct Jack and his biotic fields to stabilize SHIELD agents in the crossfire.

This base is easier, full of Hydra true-believers and barely subtle Nazi iconography just one floor down from the nondescript main lobby.

Raiding this place is _fun_ and works as an opening statement.  Gabriel intends for Hydra to start seriously worrying and the body count distribution will be a clear sign. There are too many layers of dormant agents to unearth each cell individually, and this raid is the first step of spooking Hydra into identifiable action.  

Gabriel stops at the end of the hall, facing the last lab. The door does not open like the others. And it’s...different.

This lab lacks the standard window and project label setup and the door is reinforced. In addition to the card reader that all the other labs have, this lock has a retina scanner.

Gabriel checks the manifest on his HMD.

[Project WS. Classification: Weapon. Status: Activation Sequence in Progress, T-00:14:13.]

Interesting.

Gabriel pulls out his masterkey—a black card labeled _Hydra All Access Pass_ with purple skulls—and swipes it through the card reader.

The lock beeps a rejection.

Gabriel tries again.

Same result.

“Sombra,” He growls into the comm. “Your ridiculous key doesn’t work.”

“What do you mean, doesn’t work?” Her voice crackles over the comm in annoyance. “Of course it works!”

“Come see for yourself, _chica_.”

“I swear, _viejo_ , if you are swiping the wrong way—”

“Sombra, do not whine so much,” Amélie says and Gabriel hears her voice both on the comm line and from right behind him.

He does not jump. He turns around, perfectly calm, to find Amélie right behind him.

Amélie smirks back and blessedly keeps her mouth shut.

Seconds later Sombra appears down the hall, holoscreen trailing her behind her. “Hi, babe,” she says, giving Amélie a quick kiss on the check. Their outfits, the glow of their tech, and anti-face rec makeup give them an otherworldly appearance. With the image they present along with Gabriel and Jack’s own masks, Gabriel looks forward to when he finally lets Hydra see who is targeting them.

Sombra glares at Gabriel. “I know this shit was phased out when you were a baby but what part of a card reader don’t you get?”

This coming from the kid who had to google how to pump gas. “The part where your stuff doesn’t work.”

Sombra whips out her own card— _Hydra All Access Pass Deluxe_ , made flashier by a layer of glitter—and slides it through the machine. “See, I told you—”

The lock beeps another rejection.

Her ego visibly deflates and shock stays on her face for seconds before her lips twist into a vicious grin.

“No one keeps me out.” Sombra overlays the holoscreen on top of the lock and starts typing at the generated keyboard. Forty-seven seconds later—Gabriel activates a timer on his HMD so he can tease her about being slow later—the door slides open.

Gabriel isn’t sure who is more surprised, them or the three Hydra agents in the room. The room’s two feet thick concrete walls can keep quite a few secrets along with providing a false sense of security.

Before the Hydra agents even manage to voice their surprise, Gabriel materializes his shotguns and shoots two dead while Amélie disarms the third and throws them against a strange cousin of a dental chair. In the same blink, Sombra is at the computer monitor connected to a pod.

The pod is long enough to fit a human and while the tech is ancient, Gabriel has the sinking feeling he’s looking at a cryochamber’s great grandpa with that iced-over porthole.

“Ooh, this isn’t connected to the rest of the servers.” Sombra pulls up data on the monitor, scrolling faster than human eyes can keep up. “A countdown to release the weapon? Let’s see what I can do about this.”

“Do you want this one alive?” Amélie asks, Widow’s Kiss aimed at the Hydra agent.

The agent puts their hands up. “I’ll tell you everything—”

“Not really,” Sombra says with a careless wave. “I have all we need.”

“Wait!”

Amélie silences the Hydra agent hard hit with the butt of her rifle and they crumple against the smaller computer terminal connected to the dental chair. The hit may or may not be a killing blow, but their fate is the same once the charges go off.

“Huh. I can’t turn this off and,” Sombra pauses. “Oh. That’s weird.”

Decades of experience sets off warning bells in Gabriel’s head at the phrase _that’s weird._ He’s heard that many times before being blown up or shot at or finding his objective gone. Annoyance bubbles up through Gabriel’s mission calm. “Sombra, if I have to shadowstep us out of here because you missed a self-destruct sequence, I will leave you twenty miles away from the nearest piece of technology more advanced than a sundial.”

“Nothing like that, pendejo. This isn’t a weapon, not really. Project WS aka Winter Soldier—”

A panel pops open on the pod, releasing cold air.

“—it’s a person. Well, when it thaws, it will be a person.”

Gabriel aims a shotgun at the pod. “What sort of cryogenic bullshit are we looking at here, Sombra?”

Holoscreens bloom around Sombra, some playing silent videos, others with photos. All show a collection of dead or soon to be dead bodies being taken out by the same masked and armored person.  

“Looks like Hydra has their own super soldier.” Sombra looks at Gabriel, her eyes wide and smile tight as the layers of holoscreens stack around her.

Gabriel reads the apprehension but can’t decipher what kind of landmine she’s hit. “So why is he on the other side of the fridge door?”

“They keep him like that between missions. He isn’t very...cooperative.” Her eyes dart towards Amélie. “He’s gone back and forth between Hydra and Department X...though he’s originally an American soldier. And he looks pretty good for hitting nearly a century if you ignore the raccoon eyes.”

“Not cooperative? How so?” Amélie’s voice holds no inflection and that should be normal, not making Gabriel’s warning bells worse.

Sombra winces. “In the ‘would murder his handlers if it wasn’t for a shitton of drugs and hypnotic programming.’”

The psychological landmine detonates quietly.

Gabriel resists looking at Widowmaker. She never allows herself to show true emotions anyways—especially not about _this_ —in unsecured locations, let alone on a mission. Dammit, brainwashed soldiers never work out for anyone, and with a pool of Nazi believers and cash to throw around, what is even the point of Hydra bothering to brainwash?

Then again, Talon took Amélie in retaliation to Gérard’s investigations, going an extra step rather than send a hitman. Sometimes, people bloated with power and money seem to do things just because they can.

Gabriel takes a deep breath and tries to think. “What’s the scenario if we drop him off somewhere quiet with a new identity and psych care?”

“They didn’t exactly test that but with Hydra programming, that could potentially trigger a mass murder, a return to Hydra or the wherever Soviets had him last, suicide, or any combination of the three,” Sombra says, almost clinically as she goes through the files. “And then there’s the issues of super strength, a very distinct prosthetic, necessary detox…we could give him to the Avengers?”

Gabriel snorts. “Even if they weren’t in within Hydra-SHIELD’s influence, I wouldn’t trust them with a gerbil.”

“He’s not a mutant but maybe we could talk to that one school into taking him in. Give a nice endowment and maybe that prof of theirs can help with his head—”

A sharp crack of glass and twisted metal distracts Sombra from her retort. For a moment, both Gabriel and Sombra stare at the mass of metal and glass now underneath Amélie’s rifle. Sombra shifts defensibly in front of the pod’s screen.

“You two are making this complicated,” Amélie says, calm and collected despite the sparks coming off the now broken dental chair terminal. “Grant him the kindness of death. I would have preferred such a mercy back then.”

She levels a stony stare at both of them and then stalks out of the room.

When he no longer can hear the ominous click of her heels, Gabriel lets out a sigh and,“Fuck.”

Holoscreens blink in and out of existence as Sombra’s attention goes from the door to the pod and back. “I didn’t think...didn’t know what to do with the data...”

To top off Amélie’s trauma feelings, Sombra has helpless significant other feelings. Great. Where’s Jack when he needs a second pair of hands at damage control?

Gabriel puts his hand on her shoulder and, mindful of his metal claws, gives her a steadying squeeze. “We’ll figure this out.”

Sombra stares at the doorway. “What are we going to do?”

Amélie is right about the easy answer is to kill this Project Winter Soldier. She might even be right about death being a mercy as well as efficient.

Gabriel has made that choice many times in the past, taken the shot because it’s reasonable and not lost sleep over it.

But Gabriel can’t murder someone with Amélie’s history in cold blood and then look her in the eye later.

And he is no stranger to giving people a chance, either.

“Fucking hell,” he says. “It’s been a while. Do I need to sign any papers for adoption these days?”

Sombra gives a sound that is almost a laugh, which he’ll take as a sign she won’t need as much careful handling with this as Amelie. “His identity doesn’t exist officially so you can just pick him up and run.”

Gabriel sighs. “Great.”

A screen flashes into existence displaying vitals. Gabriel is no doctor but the sudden jump from a flatline to erratic fluctuation can’t be a good sign. “Sombra.”

“Give me a moment, he’s waking up.” Sombra leans over the open panel and—probably because she can’t resist being annoying—sings, “ _Despierta, mira que ya amaneció!_ ”

The arm that reaches out and grabs her by the throat is almost deserved.

Almost.

Gabriel mists across the room, ready to free her when her when her hands grasp the arm—a metal prosthetic and thus hackable—and the limb releases her.

Only for an organic limb to follow.

Gabriel catches that arm by the wrist, grip tightening as the Winter Soldier struggles with more strength than the leverage should allow. Right, enhanced.

Gabriel pulls the soldier out of the pod, ignoring Sombra’s cry of “Careful!”

Besides the obvious strength, this Winter Soldier looks terrible; greying skin, blisters on his extremities, and muscle spasms. Of all the tech to be years behind, Gabriel never gave thought to cryogenics. Either Hydra really screwed up or their supersoldier enhancements come with a decent healing factor and this shit is considered acceptable, maybe even _intentional_.

“Easy now,” Gabriel says to the struggling soldier. “Barely awake and you come out swinging...Now, who were you expecting?”

The Winter Soldier blinks at him and Gabriel can’t help grinning under his mask. If he hadn’t decided to help this kid, Gabriel would totally pretend to be the personification of Death again just to see how far he could take the farce.

“These guys?” Gabriel points a claw at the corpses. “Hope you won’t miss them.”

The soldier sags in his grip and for a moment Gabriel thinks it’s relief before all of his weight falls towards him. Gabriel grabs both shoulders and eases the soldier back into the pod.

“Sombra?”

“Files says this is normal. Both the choking thing and the fainting thing.”

“Seems like a shitty design for a ‘top secret weapon.’”

“If Winter here wasn’t suped up like you and Jack, this would be a corpse, not a case of...narcolepsy.” Sombra leans down to poke the unconscious soldier before ripping through his shirt with one of her claws and places a diagnostic strip right above his heart. After a minute of reading vitals, she looks back at Gabriel. “He should be fine. Probably.”

“Great.” Gabriel rubs against the top of his mask. He knows he’s going to have a headache once he crashes after this mission. Gabriel thought this would be an easy one, too. “Now I need to figure out how to tell Soldier 76.”

“Tell me what?” Jack says from the hallway, pulse rifle ready.

“You could have announced that you finished up there.”

“Widowmaker suggested radio silence in passing.” The visor’s red gaze pans from the corpses to the open pod to the Winter Soldier. “What the fuck?”

“Our newest kid.” Gabriel gestures at the cryopod. “Congrats, we’re dads again.”

Jack shifts the pulse rifle, no longer aiming but far from relaxed. He steps in the room, boots leaving dark red marks on the lab floor. “That doesn’t look like a kid.”

Gabriel blinks and takes his first good look at the Winter Soldier. He has a sturdy build and dark, mangy hair and a metal left arm…

Holy fuck.

At least this kid is as pale as Jack at Christmas because Gabriel is going to have enough problems with this one without being reminded continually of _Jesse_.

“Everyone’s a kid, compared to us.” Gabriel clears his throat. “And there were extenuating brainwashing circumstances...so we are now responsible?”

He hates sounding weak there but now he has Jesse in his mind and, dammit, Gabriel feels like he’s once again asking Jack to sweep aside a whole bunch of domestic and international laws because Gabriel fell for another sob story.

Jack glances over his shoulder towards the door. “So that’s why she...huh.”

Gabriel frowns. What kind of impression did Jack get from Amélie?

“Come on, pops.” Sombra bounds over to Jack, full of false cheer and leans on his arm heavily. “Winter here—his name is Winter Soldier, btw—is apparently an infamous assassin known only by legend. Sounds like he will fit right in with our family.”

Jack tilts his head and Gabriel can’t tell if he is just thinking or if Sombra is sending a barrage of texts through his visor. Finally, Jack says, “Alright. Charges are set. Did you secure the info?”

Sombra swats at his arm. “Soldier 76, I am a _professional._ ”

“Then let’s grab him,” Jack points his thumb towards the Winter Soldier. “And get out of here. Unless you have more surprises to share, Reaper?”

Gabriel laughs and relaxes. “It’s not my fault you’re late and miss out on things.”

 

* * *

 

“Hey,” Jack says, leaning against the bathroom doorway. Amélie wishes he had not yet changed out of tactical gear or, at least, put on his glasses. Jack’s young face brings up memories of other ghosts.

Amélie focuses on removing the anti-face rec makeup, scrubbing off paint and what may be tears alike. Jack cannot see her distress and Amélie uses that comfort to strengthen her voice. “Are you going to insist I ‘talk’?”

Sombra has, badgering her every twenty minutes since the Hydra base sank into the ground. Gabriel gives her space but not even their new acquisition stops his pointed glances.

Jack must be satisfied that this Winter Soldier is momentarily stable for him to move down the line of triage.

“Nah. I’m thinking pizza,” Jack says. “There’s a place in the city whose instagram makes me think of that place we went to in Sicily.”

“Oh?”

“And the wine list is long and I don’t think I can pronounce some of these—”

Amélie scoffs and then speaks in French, “Do not pretend to be stupid, Soldier. I have known you for two lifetimes.”

Jack grins, looking every bit the young commander Gérard both loved and loved to complain about.  “I’m being honest,” he replies in the same language, with the Swiss accent he’s never managed to unlearn. “There’s all these new eco selections with fancy names that don’t mean anything yet. I want to see if we can find something that tastes more like home.”

 _Home_. What a word when first anything that could be considered such was taken from her and then later she followed Sombra to this world, leaving everyplace she once knew behind.

This is like regaining herself from Talon again; everything is familiar yet foreign.

“And where is home?”

“Fuck if I know.” Jack lapses back into English. “Maybe after enough wine we will figure that out.”

Amélie activates her nanites—well, technically Sombra’s and Amélie would be suspicious if she hadn’t secured a real promise of no mischief—and watches her skin ripple back to the cream color. “Are you sure our companions will do well with our new...friend?”

“I left sleep darts with the note. If they can’t handle one amnesic super soldier between them, well…” Jack shrugs. “They can always be knocked down a peg or two.”

Amélie covers her laugh. “And are you so different, mon ami?”

“Nah. But I got you and a regular date at the gun range to keep me humble.” Jack says. “Could hit up a range too, if you are in the mood.”

“I do not have the patience today for relics. Pizza sounds appetizing, if it is good as the place in Sicily.”

“I’m not making any promises,” Jack says and holds out his hand for her. “But it’s a new world, we might as well see what we can make of it.”

That is a bit heavy-handed even for Jack. Amélie takes his hand anyway. Memories of the past will not cow her into hiding in a bathroom; she is not a spider that hides in the shadows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick Notes:  
>  _Despierta, mira que ya amaneció_ : “wake up, see that the day has already dawned”, a line from the birthday song Las Mañanitas.  
> “Anti-face rec makeup” aka me trying to shorten “anti-facial recognition/surveillance makeup. If someone knows an actual slang term for it or can make up something not so clinical sounding, I’d greatly appreciate it.  
> Originally everything was going to be in Gabriel’s POV but I was having Amélie feelings and...yeah.  
>    
> [More chapter notes on tumblr.](http://waywardmusings.tumblr.com/post/165697061986/overwatch-mcu-old-stories-new-faces-chapter-1).


	2. Chapter 2

Jack wakes up to the warmth of the sun on his skin. The first light of the day of the spring months is not particularly hot in Washington D.C., but it’s noticeable enough when Gabriel kicks all the blankets off the bed in his sleep. Jack stretches his arms out, finding his husband close.

He traces Gabe’s shoulder, skin warm under his fingertip. Jack rests his fingertips where a bullet scar once created ridges he knew by heart. Will always know, even if the actual marks are long gone. The unmarked skin still feels like new territory and Jack believes no matter how long they live, even approaching unfathomable ideas of _eternity_ , he will always be learning his husband anew.  Gabriel curls away and mumbles into his pillow. Jack dismisses the idea of waking him; while Gabriel claims to need less sleep, he rests so peacefully with this combination of successful missions and frequent feeding.

Jack opens his eyes. The blurry, vague seeming of light amongst the great darkness is not surprising these days but still a discomfort. He reaches out to the nightstand, checking the location of his visor and glasses. Satisfied everything is in the right place, he gets up.

Something not quite tangible brushes against his wrist.

“Go back to sleep, Gabe,” Jack says and the feeling fades.

He walks out of their bedroom and pauses at the guest bedroom door where the Winter Soldier lays in a drugged sleep. Jack wonders what Gabriel had originally planned for the third room in this apartment. This is not how he had expected Gabriel to deal with empty-nest feelings.

This will blow up in their faces one way or another but last night Amélie spoke of the past candidly—of _Gérard_ —so this may not be a complete disaster.

From the files Sombra acquired, Jack has a little more than four hours before the current fentanyl drip runs out and they have to start rationing the remaining fentanyl from their Hydra raid. Jack needs to start considering other places he can take medical supplies from; he’s hoping to avoid stealing from hospitals for as long as possible.

Jack continues to the kitchen and stops at the fridge for the creamer before approaching where he knows the coffee pod machine is. He feels along the counter for the sugar container, coffee can, spoons, and mug. He measures out the sugar into the mug and loads the coffee in the mesh pod. Seconds later, the machine growls and the scent of coffee hits his nose.

He reaches for the creamer again and finds nothing. For a brief moment, he tries to recall if he heard the carton fall to the floor or sink and then the realization hits him. “Sombra.”

“Buenas días,” she replies from his right, likely sitting on the counter because simple things like using furniture for its intended purpose seems to offend her.

“You’re up early.” He says, suspicious. “Did you go to bed at all last night?”

“I didn’t know you could do dad mode before coffee.”

“Gabe’s the coffee addict, not me.”

Sombra laughs, suddenly sounding much closer. “So if I poured this stuff down the drain…”

Jack mentally counts to five. “Why are you awake?”

”About Amélie…”

Nope.

Jack grabs his mug. “I’ll take black coffee after all.”

Her weight lands against his side and Jack carefully stabilizes his coffee mug.

“You two were out past your bedtime, viejo. What did you talk about?”

It’s not her best opening.

“None of your business.”

“I want to know,” She whines and hangs off his arm.

This time, he counts to ten in Swahili and reminds himself Sombra means well, that her invasions of privacy are affectionate depending on how she decides to use the information, and that Amélie handles Sombra’s nosiness better than anyone else through a combination of stoicism and pushing Sombra onto other targets. “Then ask her.”

“As if it were that simple!” Sombra says.

“Did you ask?”

“Jaaaaack.”

She has to have picked up that particular whine from Gabriel. Thankfully, it’s not as effective as his.

Jack shakes her off his arm. “Talk to Amélie. And if she doesn’t want to talk, _try_ to respect that. _Try_ _hard_.”

He walks back to his room, curious if Sombra will risk annoying Gabriel before he’s had coffee to pester Jack.

Jack’s almost disappointed that she doesn’t follow.

He sits on his side of the bed and Gabriel must be truly awake this time as seconds later, Gabriel leans against his side. Tendrils of phantom warmth dance along his skin, rippling as Gabriel hums against his neck.

Perhaps Gabriel has overfed if his smoke is this unruly after a full night’s rest.

“Morning.”

“Oh, you brought me coffee.” Gabriel takes the mug from his hands and gives Jack a quick kiss before pulling away. The smoke tendrils remain, curling warmth around Jack’s waist like a hug.

Jack’s ready to fight for that coffee, to drink down that bitterness untempered by cream because he’s going to need it to deal with this newest post-mission cleanup Gabriel has dropped in his lap. That _we’re dads again_ is likely more prophecy than joke.

A soft, “Thanks, cariño” sweeps away that frustration. Hearing Gabriel’s voice—wholly Gabriel and not how he chooses to sound as Reaper—always hits Jack hard with the certainty that Gabriel is here and real and not just part of a mirage his fucked up brain gives him instead of true sight.

Gabriel could get away with anything with a word.

Even Jack’s coffee.

If there is a heaven somewhere, Ana is laughing at him now. Jack doesn’t blame her.

He sighs and reaches for his glasses. If he can’t enjoy his morning coffee, he might as well go for a run.

 

* * *

 

The Asset wakes up to warmth.

That in itself is not strange. The lack of phantom burning or throbbing headache to go with the warmth _is_. His body only has the faintest of aches and he’s lying on something soft.

He also hears...French. Quiet and fast and completely out of place. New doctors? Handlers?

Whoever they are, they are nearby and the Asset can’t just lay here and let Hydra do whatever they are planning because...

Well, the Asset _knows_ he once had a reason. An important one, and even if he can’t remember it—that the Chair took it from him—he has to fight before the orders begin before he loses more of himself.

The Asset opens his eyes and reaches out with his mechanical arm, ready to grab the nearest one—

Except his arm doesn’t move.

Flashes of a woman glowing purple and a skeletal face race through his mind. He had the purple girl in his grip and then his connection to the arm _stopped._

The conversation in French stops and a young man moves in his field of view.

“You woke up faster than I thought,” the man says in heavily stilted Russian, voice rough and new. He has broad shoulders, big like many of the Hydra agents the Asset has worked with but lacking any tactical gear beyond a pair of tinted glasses that look strikingly similar HMD goggles. The Asset cannot see any guns and doubts the man could hide them in his tight shirt and jeans. The man holds his hand out. “Let me help you sit up.”

The Asset forces himself up with his flesh arm and takes stock of the room. He is not in a medical facility or Hydra base unless the room is a mockup meant to look like a simple bedroom. He has an IV in his right arm and his mechanical arm hangs uselessly at his side but no restraints hold him down. Besides the bed he rests on, there is a chair next to the IV stand and a dresser against the wall near a window. The room feels big compared to the sparse furniture and the Asset gets the impression that this room has been cleared out.

He looks down at his own body. His skin is greyish and flaking, a sign of healing from the cryochamber. The Asset doesn’t remember changing out of the Hydra uniform—not that he usually recalls much from initial defrosting—and the loose-fitting sweatpants and purple shirt with a basketball logo are far from Hydra regulation.

He glances at the man, wondering if these are his clothes.

“Not one to waste time, huh?” The man says, cocking his head to the side. The sudden glimpse of his eyes through the lens glare sends a wave of recognition crashing through the Asset.

Is the man a mission? A French agent he is supposed to kill?

That doesn’t explain why his messy blond hair makes the Asset’s fingers itch with the desire to smooth and fix into something respectable.

“Is my accent that bad?” The man asks and he sounds amused.

“Yes, you are grating my ears,” says a new voice in much clearer Russian. Better than the man’s, certainly. The Asset twists his head towards the door to see a woman enter. He doesn’t think he knows her; the pale purple skin is fairly distinct. Like the man, she appears unarmed as far as the Asset can tell from her long shirt and leggings.  

The Asset wonders what has been done to her to make her skin _purple_. He pushes that interest away, he refuses to care about agents stupid enough to approach him without weapons.

Not that just two agents fully armed can take him down.

“Fine,” the man says, switching languages. “I can always speak English if you are comfortable with it.” His American accent is flat, unplaceable as any movie star. If his Russian had sound any better, the Asset would guess a Red Room graduate.

Wait, that would be one way to disguise a Red Room graduate and the Asset knows he is not the only remainder of the Red Room left, he shot through a Black Widow to complete his last mission—

Or was it the mission before that?

He is too familiar. _Has_ to be Red Room.

In Russian, the Asset says, “Mission Status.”

The blond looks towards the woman and the Asset follows his gaze. She snorts before saying, “Standby. No current orders. You are in recovery.”

The Asset nods. “My arm.”

“Sombra will repair that. You are not to harm her. She is more valuable than a technician.” She says. “Soldier 76 will see to your rest of you.”

 _Soldier 76_.

A designation. The man is an asset.

The woman may be a handler. Asset considers her, careful to avoid looking at her directly in the eye. While her clothing is casual and he cannot see a weapon, her gaze is too sharp, too ready to be a typical handler. A loyal—or well-broken—asset to be allowed control of others.

She turns to leave, her heels clicking.

“Widowmaker—” Soldier 76 asks, twisting to look at her.

“Do you require assistance?” Her voice is cutting and sounds more like a rebuke than a question.

The Asset thinks Soldier 76 will argue, can see the stubborn line of his mouth, ever ready to do something _stupid._

But Soldier 76’s shoulders slump. “No.”

She continues to the door. In her movements, the Asset recalls little ballerinas who would dance together one day and then spar against each other the next. This Widowmaker and Soldier 76 are odd yet show markers of the Red Room. The Asset isn’t sure if this is a deception or actual training; the memory of the Black Widow still in his head, he leans towards the latter. The door shuts behind Widowmaker and the Asset only gets a glimpse of cream colored walls.

“Alright,” Soldier 76 runs his hand through blond hair. The color is so bright and that seems off, maybe it was dyed if they met before? He points to the nightstand, where there is a cup of water and a few unidentifiable items. “I’m going to activate the biotic emitter while you still have a low dose infusion of fentanyl. That should reduce pain from frostbite recovery.”

The Asset’s performance must need improvement for them to treat him so delicately. He glances at the small canister Soldier 76 called a biotic emitter. “What year is it?”

“Today’s April 23, 2013.” Soldier 76 says and presses a button on the canister, creating a soft glow.

When the light reaches his skin, the Asset can feel a soft tingling.

He’s only missing three a couple months from the last activation he can recall. R&D must be working overtime to come out with tech focused on healing of all things. Perhaps—huh. The Asset remembers talks of _aliens_ from the last activation, maybe that influenced the new tech.

“Where are we?” The Asset asks, tense and ready for a reprimand.

Soldier 76 pulls a chair over to the bedside, close enough to grab easily but first, the Asset needs intel. He can wait.

“We’re in D.C.,” Soldier 76 says. “Are you experiencing any numbness or loss of sensation in your fingers or toes?”

The Asset blinks and looks down at his hand, flexing his fingers. The skin is dull and he has been ignoring that insistent itch because interrupting the healing just makes that itch last longer. Unlike most times he wakes from the cold, he already has the feeling back in his organic hand. Which, since they disabled his mechanical, is a poor consolation prize. But still _something_.

“No.” Not to fair from the Triskelion, then, and a fair distance from the Pennsylvanian base he lasts remembers. The Asset glances over to the window, wondering if the light streaming in is sunlight or a clever detail for a mockup.

“That’s good. Hydra really doesn’t do a good job of subjective details in your care. It was hard to decide how low I could go with the drip to keep awake _and_ out of pain.” Soldier 76 sounds concerned. The Asset knows better than to trust him but the lingering sense of _knowing_ frustrates him.

“Your designation is Soldier 76.” The Asset says. “What project are you from?”

“Sep.” Soldier 76 says. _Sep_ must mean something, the Asset isn’t about to admit ignorance. “You can call me Jack.”

 _Inappropriate_. Only handlers can create new designations, the Asset learned this with the little Black Widows that nicknames draw punishment.

But there is something terribly familiar about Soldier 76. Did he once call this man Jack?

“Jack.” The Asset tests the name. It doesn’t feel right.

Jack smiles, bright and warm and so perfect.

Another name hits the Asset and for a moment he has it, that wonderfully familiar name that goes with Jack’s smile—

Then it’s gone.

And the Asset falls into darkness.

 

* * *

 

 

“Amélie said he was awake.” A voice whines in English, rousing the Asset again. He’s heard that voice before, hasn’t he?

He keeps his eyes closed and breathing steady, and listens.

“You read the files, Sombra.” That rough voice he knows. Soldier 76. _Jack_.

“That mad scientist’s cookbook? I didn’t think much could turn my stomach after reading Talon’s files on—well, everything.”

“Did you ever get into the Sep medical files? The ones before they were sanitized?” Jack says, finishing with a harsh laugh. “At least, in the last few freezes, they made efforts to improve his defrosting condition...if only for the sake of efficacy.”

“Do I really have to wait for him to wake—hey,” He hears Sombra shift, suddenly closer. “Oi, pendejo, stop faking.”

The Asset opens his eyes.

The voice belongs to the glowing woman.

He reaches out on reflex.

She jumps out of his reach. “Not this again!”

“Is that how you woke him last time?” Jack snorts and walks over to sit by the bed again. “And you were surprised he choked you the first time?”

The Asset forces himself up with the one arm and takes stock of Jack. No changes in his clothing or hair. The Asset is fairly sure this is the same day.

“Do you remember the last time you woke up?” Jack asks. “It was a couple hours ago.”

The Asset isn’t sure, _can’t_ be sure even if that fits the evidence. He nods anyways. “You are Soldier 76.”

Jack smiles, bright and blinding again. “I told you, you can call me Jack.”

“And I’m Sombra. You haven’t really met me, don’t worry. I’m not the type of person people forget.” She says, waving her hand in a gesture that showed off clawed gloves. “And now we can start fixing it because that schematic I pulled? Ugh, stone age tech and duck tape.”

The Asset eyes her. All the times he can recall people messing with his arm, pain is always the result, that shooting fire down his spine, all of his nerves on fire—

“Sombra.” Jack says warningly.

“What? Oh. Fine.” Sombra turns to the Asset, eyes wide and pleading. “Can I fix the software in your arm? _Por favor_?”

Over her face, the Asset almost sees a much younger brunette and hears _“Pretty please, James? Mom said we could!”_

“You…” The Asset pauses and the image disappears.

“If you don’t want her to, she won’t.” Jack says.

The Asset almost believes him.

“But Jack, his arm is so outdated that I’m insulted that it’s even in my presence.”

“And what would Widowmaker say?”

Sombra crosses her arms. “Fine.”

“It’s up to you.” Jack leans forward in the chair. “If you want her to turn it on and _not_ upgrade, Sombra will leave you alone.”

The Asset has had so many handlers and scientists, has heard both sweet lies and terrible promises. Jack’s smile, though…

He rolls his shoulder, feeling the dead weight of his mechanical arm. The limb is always prone to pressure mistakes after defrosting, and this offer to avoid tinkering is a trick, they will force him to eventually. Finally, the Asset says, “I will submit to upgrades, Soldier 76.”

“Jack, please.”

The Asset glances at Sombra. She doesn’t have the same bearing as Widowmaker, reminds him of the doctors, those curious sorts with new drugs and new ideas and unlikely to care about familiarity as long as she gets results. “Jack,” The Asset says finally.

He earns another one of those warm smiles. The Asset will continue to call him Jack when reasonable.

“What would you like us to call you?”

The Asset shrugs. “No preference.”

Jack’s smile fades.

“My designation is usable,” The Asset says quickly, hoping for another smile.

Instead, he gets Sombra coming in close again, staying just out of range by leaning on Jack’s shoulder.

“They call you a lot of things.” She says. “The Winter Soldier, Fist of Hydra...Department X liked The American, how _unoriginal_. Then there’s an alphanumeric soup of project names. Come on, give us something better.”

“I’m an Asset,” he says automatically.

“Do you remember your name?” Jack asks. “We weren’t able to pull those records.”

Is this some kind of trick?

“Don’t go blaming me for that.” Sombra’s scrunches up in disgust. “The records are so old they are probably on _paper_.”

He has a name and in the cryochamber he sometimes dreams of hearing it shouted out in panic. The Asset has tried so many times to keep that name with him in the waking world. He is not sure whether he failed every time or if the Chair took it from him like everything else.

If this is a trap, there is no right answer anyways. He looks Sombra in the eyes. “I do not know.”

The woman and Jack exchange a look, then both look at him.

“Can’t call you Soldier,” she says. “That would be too confusing with Jack here.”

“How about Winter, then?”

“Really? You should leave the naming thing to Gabe.”

“He calls himself _Reaper_.”

“And you’re any better, _soldado_?”

“Whatever you say, shadow.”

The Asset considers. He’s not sure he wants a _name_. He can understand not being called Asset or Soldier when there are apparently several in play. Winter is not terrible and he might respond even if he forgets this particular conversation. “Winter is fine.”

“ _Hola_ , Winter,” she holds out her hand. “I’m Sombra.”

Winter keeps his functional arm at his side. “Designation?”

“Sombra _is_ my only name.”

“Well...” Jack draws out the word with a grin.

She stares Jack for a long moment. “That soplona, who didn’t she tell?!”

“If you mean Alejandra, she was an angel. And for Aleskandra...well, you shouldn’t have been showing off in your own hometown.”

Sombra huffs. “Seriously, Mr. I Must Use the Same Weapon I’m Pictured With On the Poster Every Kid Grows Up With?”

The Asset studies Jack’s face again; is a poster why his face looks familiar?

No, it’s more than just that.

A flash of an image—red, white, _blue_ —and the Asset is _teasing_ someone about the picture. Jack? No, not called Jack, not then...

“I thought the only person I cared about knowing was dead,” Jack says with a shrug. “What were they going to do, arrest me? I was already a wanted vigilante.”

He watches the pair bicker but stops paying attention. The word _vigilante_ strikes the wrongness chord. Hydra rejects vigilantism, rejects anything outside their own order. Department X would not have allowed that either.

Jack laughs at something Sombra says and the Asset feels himself smile instinctively.

Perhaps, whatever this is will be a bigger change than going from Department X to Hydra.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally, this was going to be a much longer multichapter story but I think the parts work better as smaller, separated arcs. (If subscribing is your thing, it may work better to subscribe to the series.)
> 
> I'm playing up Steve and Jack's similarities for Future Reasons. And because [this comic on tumblr cracks me up](http://kc0l.tumblr.com/post/163570600597/oh-no). So true about fanart.
> 
>  
> 
> [Chapter notes are on my tumblr here. ](http://waywardmusings.tumblr.com/post/166203616601/overwatch-mcu-old-stories-new-faces-chapter-2)


	3. Chapter 3

Amélie misses the single-minded certainty Talon gifted to her as they twisted her mind and body into a weapon. She never truly forgot being Amélie Lacroix-Guillard, there was just a clear line between that person and Widowmaker.

Now, she remembers both as herself. She _is_ both.

Memories of before Talon color her memories with pain Widowmaker had no concept of, making days of isolation and trainers suddenly horrific rather than a monotony similar to her recollections of her ballet years.

Amélie dislikes the way Lacroix-Guillard’s empathy and Widowmaker’s recollections drive her from the Winter Soldier’s room.

And _loathes_ how Gabriel takes one look at her and orders Sombra to leave the kitchen.  “Keep an eye on Jack,” the bullshitter.

To make everything worse, Sombra _knows_ . She follows Gabriel’s order without a whine and Amélie doesn’t dare watch her go, hates that she may see _pity_.

Amélie settles on the kitchen counter and watches Gabriel hovers between bread baking in the oven and the soup on the stove. His glances at her are not subtle.

It takes under five minutes for him to finally break his silence.

Amélie almost misses when his deep cover in Talon stilled his tongue.

“Sombra means well,” Gabriel says, his expression clearly showing how little he thinks of that. Gabriel Reyes has always been a man of who cared about other’s results, not their intentions.

Gabriel himself, willing to play a role, play up to expectations...all with an end goal in sight.

It’s funny how he surrounds himself with people who play up on image nearly as much as action, from his cowboy miscreant son to Jack who will reshape himself to fit whatever role he’s pushed into. Whatever role will help Gabriel most.

Both as Widowmaker and as Amélie, she understands Jack far better than his circle of friends, save perhaps Gabriel. Sometimes she wonders if Gérard saw that same desire to please, to be wanted in that shifting persona of his boss as he did in his wife. Gérard often did see more than others wanted him to and died when Talon noticed him watching.

“Does she?” Amélie asks, to clear her head of the past.

“She’s been harassing Jack and I more than you,” Gabriel says. “And I think that’s her trying. ‘Course, she has to dance around the question and be annoying as fuck.”

That surprises a laugh out of Amélie. Sombra is another, playing on her reputation and a recklessness that only a person without ties can have. A truly perfect mercenary...if Sombra’s apathy had been deeper than a mask. Poor little hacker cares too much. She cared and cared and did not leave Amélie alone, and she was lucky Widowmaker had cared so little about the girl’s side actions.

“You going to talk, or just glare at everything?”

Amélie holds his gaze.

“Glaring it is, then,” He says, rolling his eyes as she is one of his miscreants.

“There is _nothing_ to talk about,” She hisses out. Her fingers twitch for her rifle. “Unless you want to reconsider your newest waste of resources.”

“Waste?” There’s a softness in Gabriel’s voice that makes her skin itch. He shakes his head, as if brushing whatever emotion off. “I like to think of my...rescues as investments.”

“Rescues? Oh mon ami, perhaps I can believe you with Jesse,” She all but purrs, savoring the way Gabriel tenses. She knows him and he knows kindness has never been a trait of Lacroix-Guillard, let alone Widowmaker. “And what of your recruitment of the younger Shimada? Was that a rescue as well, or merely an _investment_ disguised as charity?”

Gabriel rounds his shoulders, trying for his usual carefree-air. The smoke at his lips gives him away. “That was a complicated situation.”

Amélie looks away first and moves to grab a mug. She won this one; she knows which sins of Overwatch and Blackwatch will always hurt Gabriel.

And Jack, but Jack is usually the softer target; guilt untempered by Gabriel’s conviction of  _doing what’s needed_ that survived even Zurich and Talon.

She focuses on making her tea and reminds herself she is nothing like the strays Gabriel allows too close, or this newest wretch picked up from Hydra.

Unlike this Winter Soldier, _no one rescued Amélie_. She chose to stop following Talon, chose to not report her suspicions of Reaper and Sombra. Talon drained her of her ability to care, and with that, she did as their orders bid her but nothing more. Not for them.

She chose to change her life and fought her way out of their control on her _own_.

Amélie is not _weak_ or _helpless_ and she will not put up with her team thinking of her as such just because there are similarities between her and their newest rescue.

 

* * *

 

Winter feels detached from the situation as he tries to watch Sombra work without reacting. Hydra _never_ left him completely unrestrained and without an armed guard.

Sombra is doing _something_ with a hologram, humming a tune he doesn’t recognize. Winter tries not to pay much attention to her. He doesn’t trust her but the letters on her screen moving too fast for him to keep up and he’s trying to avoid frustrating himself over things he can’t change.

If he needs to, Winter is fairly certain he can disable her with a blow to the strange implants on her scalp. It’s possible the glowing purple lines are a decoy of some sort but either way, a good hit to the head can disable many.

Jack, he’s not sure about. The blond man sits still, leaning back in the chair next to the bed with his arms across his chest. Despite lens glare hiding his eyes from view, Jack’s half smile is comforting. Winter feels a strangely relaxed in front of him, even as Sombra tinkers with his arm. With both arms, Winter thinks he could take Jack on in a fight but the very thought leaves him apprehensive.

He recognizes Jack as dangerous in a physical sense but that strange, nameless familiarity forces non-lethal adjustments to his escape plans. A greater part of him thinks _extraction_ , to subdue and take Jack away from whatever splinter group mess this is, and find out why he feels he knows—knew?—Jack.

“There we go,” Sombra says, screwing the last panel back into place. The screwdriver is placed quickly back in the case.

Winter watches her check over the contents before closing the case. He knows that checking procedure—and Winter is pretty certain he took advantage of a technician’s misstep before—and he finds Sombra’s safety check almost funny; Winter doesn’t need a screwdriver to do harm.

“Alright now,” Sombra says, snapping the toolkit shut.  “Flex those fingers.”

Winter blinks, unsure. He has a hazy awareness back in his arm back, yes, but the prosthetic doesn’t feel activated yet.

“Just gimme a little twitch” Sombra demonstrates, making a fist. “Show me my good work already.”

He thinks about movement and to his surprise, the fingers curl. “It didn’t—”

Winter stops himself. It didn’t hurt. The ache from the shoulder attachment is there, low and waiting under whatever anesthetic they gave him, but the jolts of that pain that comes with function, the ones that do not leave, just becoming more manageable with use until he is frozen away again...those are absent.  

“Something wrong?” Jack asks, reaching out for Winter’s metal hand and holding it gently in his own.

The light pressure is strange after the arm being numb for so long. Winter stays as still as possible. Jack’s hands look strong and yet the way he carefully inspects the framework with his own fingers, Winter remembers the damage his arm can do to flesh. If he can avoid it, Winter doesn’t want to hurt Jack.

“Excuse me? _Me,_  do something _wrong_?” Sombra’s hands go on her hips and she looms over the back of Jack’s chair.

Jack leans back and grins up at her. “You’re the one that said the tech is out of date. There’s only so much that can be done with patches.”

“It needs major hardware updates but nothing is wrong with my work.” Sombra leans over Jack and jabs a finger to Winter’s chest. “What do you _think_ is wrong?”

They both look at him with curious gazes, closer than technicians and handlers dare approach without restraints or guns. Winter flexes his metal fingers under Jack’s hand.  “It is operational.”

“Told you!” Sombra waggles a clawed finger. “Come on, time to get moving. Who knows what mess jefe left for us.”

Jack withdraws his hand, angling a questioning look at Sombra. “I suppose the kitchen has been suspiciously quiet…”

 

* * *

 

 

Sombra reenters the kitchen first, passing Gabriel without a glance.

Amélie tracks her movements, trying to relax her shoulders and keep her face passive.

She can’t hide from Sombra, not when Sombra has already tasted blood in the water. Sombra settles on the chair next to her and leans into her space, carefully not touching. “Amélie?”

Her tone is soft, gentle. Amélie hates it.

“Talk to me. Please, mi araña?” Sombra asks.

Amélie _does not care_ about any of this. She shouldn’t have to talk.

But she does want Sombra to stop walking on eggshells.

Sombra cups her hands around Amélie’s.

Amélie frowns.

“What do you need?”

“You knew what I was like then.” Amélie glances to the stove, where Gabriel’s made himself busy with his phone. She doesn’t believe he’s distracted at all but nothing she has to say will be news to him.  “I dislike the memories.”

Sombra straightens her spine and emotions flicker across her face before she settles into a familiar, light smile.

“If he brings up too many memories, I’ll get rid of him,” Sombra promises. “Or if you want, we can...leave. For a while. Or for just a bit. Up to you.”

Amélie snorts. Sombra give up a project she’s already sunk her teeth in? Amélie would not ask for that.

 _Stopping_ did not save Gérard. He was dead not months after he gave up his investigation at her request.

“I survived the reality.” Amélie squeezes Sombra’s fingers, wanting something solid. Something real. “I can handle the memories.”

Sombra laces their hand together. “You’re not alone, you know.”

This time, Amélie laughs out loud. “As if you let me go a half hour without reminding me. Relentlessly.”

Sombra grins with that bright energy and leans in for a quick kiss on her forehead. “Wouldn’t want you to forget.”

Amélie smiles.

She does not forget.

Not anymore.

 

* * *

 

 

Following Jack seems right.

He differs from the other agents of Department X or Hydra. Jack’s hands are gentle as he helps Winter up, voice steady as he explains medical monitoring strips—more new alien based technology or good old-fashioned human ingenuity?—and removes them along with the IV.

Winter doesn’t like the idea of _trusting_.

He first focuses on the windows and sees other buildings, not a hint of trees or street to suggest they are anywhere near ground. Not a favorable way out, if any of this view is actually real.  

The layout is open, a sturdy table between them and the group in the kitchen. He remembers meeting the women—Widowmaker and Sombra—but the third he’s unsure of. The man is built similar to Jack, maybe bigger but that’s hard to tell; unlike the other three’s trend towards skin-tight clothing, this one wears a loose hoodie. And oddly a hat, _indoors_. Big and imposing while hovering over a stove. Or maybe more imposing over the stove, as Winter can imagine him more in barracks than a kitchen.

Or not, as Winter has never seen a soldier with such dark skin in either Hydra nor Department X.

But Winter almost remembers something—someone?—that makes him flinch at the thought.

Something about that memory fragment makes him think how utterly stupid Hydra and Department X are about where people come from and what they look like. Winter knows—

He knew?

Jack stops, the kitchen island between them and the group. All of them are staring, even the man at the stove abandons the pot to look at him. Winter feels a chill go down his spine and he stiffens.

“You met Widowmaker earlier,” Jack says, oblivious or ignoring the tension. “Her name is Amélie, by the way.”

Amélie rolls her eyes and then looks back down to her phone. “You may call me what you wish.”

Winter’s first instinct is to call her _doll_ or _sweetheart_ or anything else to wind her up. Winter pushes that down, remembering well the cost of insubordination. He has no intention of doing something stupid like calling her by _name_ , no matter what Jack says.

“And this is Gabriel.” There is a softness in Jack’s voice that pulls his attention away from Amélie. “His codename is _Reaper_.”

At first, Winter finds the codename and the way Jack’s voice shifts to say it funny. Gabriel is a big guy, built along the same lines as Jack yet he seems like any civilian off the street. All four of the group, with their youth and civilian clothing, Winter can easily picture this group on a college campus he has staked out.

He wonders if they ever pull such a cover. It would fit more than the strange scene he woke up from the ice—

Oh.

Winter considers the man’s size and codename. “You’re the one with the mask.”

Gabriel chuckles and pulls the mask from his side. “This old thing?”

Winter stares. He’s certain that wasn’t there a moment ago. Hadn’t Gabriel had a spoon in his hands moments ago?

“Gabe,” Jack says, voice laced with warning.

“Relax, Jack.” Gabriel waves the bone mask. “Got to say, kid, you look better than earlier.”

Winter frowns, this Gabriel can’t be much older than Jack and he may have forgotten—lost—a lot but he is certain he is older.

“Wait.”

Winter freezes, watching Gabriel turn a dark look on Jack. Apprehension builds up in his gut and he takes mental stock. His only weapons are his arm and his own body and—

“Is he wearing my pants?” Gabriel demands.

Winter almost responds but Gabriel is pointing the spoon—wait, where did that mask go?—at Jack, who just laughs.

“Why did you take _my_ shit?”

“Don’t be a baby, Gabe. You have more clothes than I do.”

“Some of us wear things other than black compression shirts every damn day.”

Jack gives one of his wide, blinding grins. “Exactly. Which is why I went for _your_ closet.”

“If you give him any of my shoes, I’m going to gut you.”

Winter braces himself, ready to get in between them. His toes curl against the kitchen tile and for the first time, he realizes his feet are bare.

“Don’t worry, Gabe, you two don’t wear the same shoe size,” Jack says, sounding perfectly innocent.

Winter knows that tone and apparently so does everyone else. Sombra and Amélie snort.

“Jack,” Gabriel growls out.

Winter looks back and forth between them, Jack is still smiling.

“Does it matter if he isn’t wearing them now?”

Anger leaves Gabriel’s face as quickly as it appeared and he laughs. “Jackass. What’s next, my beanie?”

Jack tilts his head and his smile shifts to something more sly—Winter knows that expression—and Jack reaches towards Gabriel.

“Hey!” Sombra appears behind Jack—Winter didn’t even see her _move_ — and rests a clawed hand on his shoulder. “Don’t we have a rule or three about fighting in the kitchen?”

“Yes,” Widowmaker says, not looking up from her phone. “We made those rules after certain _someones_ broke the coffee pot.”

“That,” Gabriel says delicately. “Was an accident.”

Amélie raises an eyebrow. “And the dented frying pan?”

“Okay, that was intentional. Mostly. Anyways, you,” Gabriel points to Winter. “Looks like it’s been awhile since you’ve had a home-cooked meal.”

WInter isn’t sure what to say.

Amélie rolls her eyes and mutters something that has Sombra laughing.

“Ignore them,” Jack says, hand a heavy, anchoring weight on Winter’s soldier. “Let’s set the table since these lazy asses couldn’t be bothered.”

Gabriel grumbles out a response in a language Winter doesn’t recognize. Not quite French—Spanish, maybe?

Winter follows Jack to the cabinet and lets the man load his arms with plates.

He half wonders if this is a fever dream.

He hopes he doesn’t wake.

 

* * *

 

 

Winter is really sick of this passing out thing.

He shifts slightly, trying to place himself. The flat surface is cushioned but not quite as soft as the bed earlier.

“I don’t see why I have to wash dishes.” A distant voice says, and Winter registers it as _Gabriel, Code Name: Reaper_ . There’s a _plunk_ of something falling in water. “I _cooked_. I cooked plain ass soup like you asked, made it so bland that even Torb could eat it and—”

A loud sigh.

“Don’t give me that, pendejo. You’re babying _them_.”

“Apparently,” A deeper, raspy voice. _Jack_. “I’m playing babysitter for a full bunch of brats today.”

“ _Excuse me_?”

Gabriel sounds so offended that Winter has to stifle a laugh.

“I could have cleaned these by myself,” Jack says. “But I have to keep a certain someone from sticking his nose into other people’s relationships.”

“That’s not what I’m doing.”

“Sure,” Jack says, voice dripping with disbelief.

“Amélie’s going to mess up a mission or some shit if she’s this moody.”

“You know, you can just say you don’t want to cause her pain.”

Silence.

“She told me to…”

Jack hums. “She told me about it over pizza.”

Gabriel sighs and there’s some shuffling that makes Winter want to open his eyes to check what’s going on before Gabriel says, “I couldn’t do it. Amélie might be right but...”

“I know.”

Winter doesn’t, doesn’t have a clue about what they are talking about and he dislikes being out of the loop. He can’t plan around shit when these people aren’t Hydra and seem far from Department X roots.

“You know everything these days, Jackass?”

“No. I just know you.”

Gabriel lets out a loud laugh. “You trying to be cute, stealing my lines?”

“Is it working?”

“No.”

“You sure?” Jack asks and Winter just _knows_ the annoyingly pleased smile Jack must have on his face.

“Shut up,” Gabriel snaps. “Finish this shit yourself.”

“Whatever you say, _boss_.”

Gabriel swears and boot-heavy footsteps stomp away from Winter and the kitchen.

Winter tries to recall the layout. If he’s on the couch, Gabriel has to be heading to one of the closed doors he saw during dinner.

“You awake?” Jack asks, voice suddenly close.

Winter opens his eyes and looks up at Jack.

“Thought so.”

Winter sits up, recognizing the soft surface as the couch across from the kitchen. He is wearing the same clothes as earlier— _Reaper’s_ clothes—and the light of day out the windows has shifted to the glow of streetlights. Or, a very good simulation. He’s seen Hydra pull such tricks as part of interrogation, creating illusions of time changes.

“You passed out,” Jack says and Winter appreciates he didn’t have to _ask_. “Which, honestly, it’s surprising you were awake as long as you were.”

Winter frowns. Jack didn’t think he is defective, did he?

“The good news is you finished the soup before falling asleep in the bowl. But,” Jack brushes a hand against his forehead and Winter barely manages to steel himself still from the sudden stinging. “The bowl didn’t do a good job as a pillow.”

“My handlers used stimulants to keep me awake,” Winter says. He hates them, they make him feel jittery and out of control but anything is better falling asleep and waking fresh from the ice again.

“If you want, I can get them for you. But I was hoping we could get you back to a normal wake/sleep schedule.”

Winter frowns, not sure what Jack’s goal is. “I’m not functional like this.”

Jack chuckles. “You’re recovering. Can’t expect miracles overnight.”

He stares at the blond’s face. There’s a joke he wants to make, something about S—Jack? But Winter loses the thought even as he smiles.

“I can be functional.” Winter insists.

Jack says something under his breath and Winter can barely make out the word _children_.

“I’m older than you,” Winter says before his brain even processes the thought. He frowns, “Aren’t I?”

Jack shrugs. “Depends on how you count.”

Winter thinks of years and memories lost in the cryochamber and feels cold. He knows what Jack means, and if he—they?—can stay awake longer, stay out of _the chair_ , the memories may return. Isn’t that what his handlers always feared?

“Come on, let’s get you to a real bed.” Jack holds out his hand and Winter grabs it, belatedly registering his words. Jack pulls him up with ease.

 

* * *

 

Sombra’s newest security update included her own settings as default (yet again) and Gabriel is still trying to figure out how to reset them. He has managed to shift the holoscreens from hexagons to circles, which he hadn’t even been aware was an option.

He gave up on removing the skull icons or shifting back to standard colors. At least with the circles, it looks a little less like Sombra runs his life.

Jack enters the room when Gabriel is already waiting in bed, back up against the headboard and a quarter of the way through reading the data they took from the base. Sombra may have an aversion to user-friendly systems but damn does she know how to organize datadumps.

Jack looks soft out of his body armor, young, tired, and not a weapon on him. Only the glasses and fluffy hair separate Jack from the buzzcut army boy that survived SEP with Gabriel.

Gabriel supposes the softness is intentional, a play for his new audience.

“So,” Gabriel draws out the word and swipes the holoscreens closed. “How is your patient?”

“I’m not a doctor,” Jack says, stripping his shirt off.

No, not a doctor. Just the closest thing to one Gabriel has on their team. The lack of strings, whether they be the UN or Talon, comes with a lack of organized support. There could be worse situations, though. Moira was useful, bad habits aside, but Gabriel wasn’t ever stupid enough to try to ask _Jack_ to work with Moira.

Perhaps in another life, a _future_ life, Jack could take the opportunity to try out the medical field.

Gabriel remembers Jack pouring over books for his field medic exams, quizzing Jack on the material (and making more than a few anatomy jokes, which Gabriel is certain actually helped with mnemonic retention and, no, were not just an excuse for bad innuendos). But how much of Jack’s focus was genuine interest and not desperation to protect Gabriel and their team? Unlike Gabriel’s own dabblings in fashion design, boxing, history, or any one of the hundreds of things he considered before following his mom’s path to military, teenage Jack only wanted to get the fuck out of Indiana. (Which makes him far more successful in regards to childhood ambitions but really, Jack could have dreamed even a little bigger.)

He imagines them living it up in a city, trying jobs that have nothing to do with bloodshed. Would it keep them entertained, or feel like a cover they hold until the time to pick up guns again arises?

That’s a conversation for another day, though. A day when they don’t have amnesic supersoldiers or Nazi conspiracies to worry about.

“You missed the opportunity to make a _playing doctor_ joke, Gabriel,” Jack says, removing his glasses. He rubs over his eyes and pushes hard against his brow. “What are you plotting?”

Maybe Gabriel let himself get lost for a moment because Jack’s already switched out the jeans for sweatpants.

“I think you would look pretty good in scrubs,” Gabriel answers, somewhat honestly. He’s pretty sure he had that dream once or twice in SEP and despite reasonable aversions to medical shit, those didn’t shift into nightmares. “Now tell me, what’s your _not a doctor_ assessment of the new kid?”

“Winter made another go for Sombra earlier. Kid has good instincts.” Jack forces out a laugh as he sits on the bed. “He needs serious help, Gabe.”

“I’m aware.” Gabriel tugs on his arm and Jack moves with him until their knees knock together. Gabriel pulls the blanket up to cover Jack’s bare shoulders, watching Jack tense then relax as he takes in the sensation.

“I don’t know what you’re expecting out of this,” Jack says softly, as if a confession. They’re good at following each other’s unspoken plans. Usually. “I don’t know if we can fix him.”

And there lies Gabriel’s problem; between Amélie and Jack’s _reasonable_ concerns, he hears a challenge.

Sometimes Gabriel wonders why the combination of _lethal_ and _broken_ draws his interest so easily. He doesn't think he had a taste for it before Crisis but he’s not quite sure if Jack counts. (Fearless Jack Morrison, all smiles and pretty words until he’s ready to hit back, fire back, do whatever it takes; all that violence pent up before the army—before _Gabriel_ —pointed him at a target.) “There aren’t exactly guidelines to deal with brainwashed supersoldiers. Sombra makes it sound like he imprinted on you.”

It’s a good thing Jack wears a mask in fights these days because Gabriel can practically see the shift from _continue argument_ to _switch gears_ play across his face. Or perhaps, Gabriel knows his husband too well. “I suppose he did see me first when he woke up,” Jack says and then flashes his classic PR smile. “Jealous, Gabe?”

Gabriel laughs. “Curious.”

And perhaps a bit suspicious. Excess nanites drift around them to form a haze, another layer between them and the rest of the world.

What about Jack draws such focus from a brainwashed assassin? Gabriel knows better than to generalize too much from Amélie’s history but she did not fixate positively. Not in a way Talon wanted...or in a way Gabriel could have hoped for, in the early days. Looking back, Gabriel can see how close he and Sombra were to being outed if not for Widowmaker’s rather fickle interpretation of mission objectives.

Gabriel kisses his forehead. “Be careful, Jackie.”

“Aren’t I always?”

Gabriel snorts.

“You’re the one who should be more careful. That mask trick, really? I thought we agreed to keep _this_ under wraps,” Jack waves his hands through the air, brushing against nearly solid nanite tendrils.

Gabriel knows what he can look like, knows what he can get away with, and cheating a little to pull off one of Jesse’s sleight of hand tricks is not going to set off anyone's suspicions in a world where nanotechnology is in its infancy.

Gabriel lets his nanites twist his fingers into the familiar shape of claws. He traces across Jack’s check and tugs at his bottom lip with a single sharp point. “You think I’m not in control?”

“I think you are playing games.”

That’s fair.

“I’m the careful one, cariño,” Gabriel says.

He isn’t surprised by Jack’s laugh, this is an argument they’ve had _many times_.

“Only comparatively. Ana thought the lot of us were idiots.” Jack sighs. “Probably right, even Torb...”

“She’d always said that like she _never_ left her nest to get into the thick of a Bastion fight,” Gabriel says. “You all gave me a goddamn heart attack one time or another.”

“True.” Jack leans close again. “Still...keep in mind Winter’s not on our side. Not now, at least.”

As if Gabriel needs a reminder but Jack doesn’t understand. _Can’t_ really understand, not without experiencing it himself and Gabriel will shoulder the direct nanite interface for the both of them. The work he went through with Sombra and the Ziegler siblings to make his nanites less volatile and barely painful does not make him less aware of them or the gnawing hunger, just allows him to push it to the back of his mind.

This is a burden he will never let Jack share.

Unless he concentrates, Gabriel does not feel the individual nanites in his body nor the ones in Jack, and he definitely doesn’t get sensation feedback the Sombra corrupted ones the others carry—thank fucking god, he does _not_ need to know what any of them get up to—but he can feel a sharp line between _us-me-mine_ and the unmarked lifeforce of the Winter Soldier.

The Winter Soldier isn’t one of his own—might never be—and he doesn’t need _Jack_ reminding him.

He’s certainly tempted to collect this one. While Jack played nursemaid to the kid, Gabriel got the chance to go through files Sombra recovered. Half the _Project WS_ documents read like Moira’s work—emphasis on successful primary objectives, while sweeping less savory results and methods under vague statements—and overall, it doesn’t paint a pretty picture.

But Gabriel can read between the lines, finding gems in repeated descriptions like _mouthy_ and _sabotage_ and _requires retraining_ . There’s a mind under all that brainwashing and Gabriel wants to see it because the descriptions make him think of a brat in a cowboy hat and despite _everything_ , if there is one thing Gabriel is sure he did right, it’s Jesse McCree.

Maybe Jesse plays a bigger role in Gabriel’s decision making process than he should.

He loves Jesse dearly—he’s Gabriel’s kid more than anyone else’s—and that leaves a mark.

Jesse who has the god-given sense of when to quit. Quit Deadlock, quit Overwatch, quite Gabriel when everything was going to hell—

Sharp pain lances through his fingers and it takes a second to realize Jack _bit_ his hand.

Gabriel pulls back, hand and body alike, and hits back into the headboard _hard_. A frustratingly familiar combination of annoyance and lust twists in his gut but from the way Jack props himself up on one arm to stare down at Gabriel, they’re still stuck in a conversation that belongs more in an office than their bed.

...not that they have offices these days.

And it’s not like they always kept the _office_ and _bed_ distinction when they did.

“You’re getting stuck in your head again,” Jack says.

“I’m _thinking_. Isn’t that what you wanted?

Jack gives a deep, long-suffering sigh that is ridiculous in the absence of anything seriously, like killer robots or UN paperwork. “Are you getting attached?”

“You aren’t?”

Jack plays lone wolf, sure, but even as Soldier 76, he caved to Hana and Lucio and Brigette and all the ones too young to know better than to answer the Recall.

Jack drops his head, half burying his face in the pillow. “Oh god...You _weren’t_ joking about the dad thing.

“Would I joke about—”

“Yes.”

Okay. Fair.

“Jack—”

“I thought we agreed, _no more murder children_.”

“It’s not that bad.”

Sure, the Winter Soldier may have a higher kill count upon first meeting than any single one of their collection of children, mentees, and minions, but if they start judging on that, introspection is going to _suck_.

“I don’t know, Gabe, is a brainwashed supersoldier assassin more or less extreme than your gunrunning underage gangster?”

Pride surfaces through the mix of emotions that the memories of Overwatch early days evokes and Gabriel can’t help a smirk.“I suppose Jesse set the bar a little high.”

“High? Do you even know how much paperwork bullshit I had to pull to put that work-release deal remotely near the table?”

“I didn’t ask—”

“Oh yes you did. You went on about how you thought he could be rehabilitated and shit, his age, his ability....and then all but batted your pretty brown eyes at me.”

“Aww, you think my eyes are pretty?” Gabriel asks, tugging Jack’s left hand up to his face and leans into his palm.

“Fuck you, you’re always pretty. Down to every last nanite.”

From the hard line of his mouth, Jack’s not even trying for sweet and that makes the statement even more endearing. Gabriel smiles against Jack’s hand.

Gabriel would love to shift this conversation to something more fun, but he needs to strike while Jack is in such an open and soft mood.  
"You've been moody."

Jack’s quiet for a minute and Gabriel knows when he finally does speak, it’s after Jack reminds himself how fucking easily they can fall apart without clear communication. "All this work, cleaning out these bases and working with you, with our team feels..."

"Fun?" Gabriel offers, only half serious because that isn’t something Jack likes to admit to. "Killing Nazis and blowing up shit get you hot?"

Gabe's rewarded with a shove that would have sent him over the side of the bed if he hadn't known it was coming.

"Fighting for a cause is like being home, you _ass_."

Gabriel hums agreeably. "Then what is your problem?"

"I miss _our_ team. Our Overwatch. Hell, I'd give so much to have Mercy—" Jack pauses.

Gabriel would like to pretend he's remained stoic but the buzz of his nanites give him away. Gabriel once loved that kid, her and her brother both, excused them from his distrust of docs in the early days of Overwatch but these days those memories are colored by the knowledge Moira took Angela’s work to twist him into this form beyond the mess SEP left him in, and then the fucking trials he went through to stabilize his ‘body’ after gutting Talon.

They are both quiet for a moment, stuck in memories.

Then Jack chuckles softly. "God, I'd take Ana and her batshit idea to heal via shooting us."

It's not quite a save, more of a de-escalation, but for all the apologies and forgiveness exchanged between old soldiers, Gabriel and Jack carry mental scars from losing Ana, both from her fake one and from her final breaths.

Gabriel snuggles closer to Jack. "She always did threaten she's empty a clip on us. Even found a way to do it repeatedly.”

Jack laughs softly, sadly. The sound echoes through Gabriel.

"I miss her," Jack says. "I miss all of them."

Gabriel knows, a part of him angrily remembers offering this consolation prize—immortality, but a fucked up version—and the pain when despite what he could offer, only him and Jack remain of their Strike Team, of the family they made between blood, sweat, and the robot apocalypse.

Gabriel tried for the longest time to hold on to anger, tried to avoid admitting what he was losing.

What _they_ lost.

Some days, Jack and Gabe seem to always be the last ones standing, the last of SEP, the last of the Strike Team.

And Gabriel's grateful Jack is here with him, said yes, said _always_ in that stupid Jack Morrison way.

"I'm glad you're here with me." Gabriel has lost much, learned to live with the scars and aches, but the loss of Jack would ruin him.

Zurich came  _so_ close. He remembers, deep under the anger, his tiny hope that the lack of a corpse meant Jack survived even as he feared someone like Moira had Jack's body.

Jack's tired voice draws him out of the past. "Always knew I was going to live or die by your side."

Gabriel hates how he melts so easily, body and nanites cuddling closer to Jack in reaction. “Idiota.”

"I do like it, you know. Working with Amélie and Sombra. Just..."

"It's not really the same, is it?” Gabriel says, because he does know. “I woke up today with a craving for Torb's pancakes. You remember, those weird thin ones—”

"—rolled up with jam. Oh yeah."

"We should make them in the morning. We haven't had them in years. Torb wouldn't want that."

"God no, we were in a middle of a war zone and he was still always  dad'ing us, all of us, always saying we never ate enough food or got enough sleep—"

"—and had way too much fun," Gabriel finishes with a grin. "Nothing like a cranky engineer out of coffee to encourage us to finish the fucking war fast."

Jack laughs deeply and overly long. He’s gasping for air at the end, and Gabriel knows what he said wasn’t _that_ funny, but Jack is certainly that tired.

"Go to sleep, Jack.” Gabriel pulls the blankets close, cocooning their shared warmth. “In the morning, we’ll have pancakes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year!
> 
> Sorry this is late but a) I finally landed a full-time job in December...and atm, I live an hour and a half away from it so I have had much less time and b) this chapter decided to mutate into something much longer to the point that I split it into two parts, which means there will be a chapter 4. I'm working on fitting writing back into my schedule again so hopefully finishing up chapter 4 won't take too long. 
> 
> And then once that's finished, then I'll have the next part of the series: _First Contact_. Aka we finally get to meet the Avengers :D
> 
> [Chapter notes on my writing tumblr](https://waywardmusingswrites.tumblr.com/post/169191451620/overwatch-mcu-old-stories-new-faces-chapter-3).


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